Introduction

1On its north-western part, the Red Sea borders the Egyptian coast. If we move away from the shore towards the Nile Valley, we get into the Egyptian Eastern Desert, an arid and mountainous area.

2During the Pharaonic period, this place was on the fringe of the territory, at the same time both a foreign land and part of the land of Egypt. For the Egyptians, their home was Km.t, the “black” valley fertilized by the silt of the Nile. On the contrary, the desert was the “red” land, dšr.t, always written with the determinative sign of foreign lands, the three hills . But despite the foreign character of its name, the desert was actively exploited by the ancient Egyptians throughout their history. Indeed, for them, the Eastern Desert was attractive because of its mineral wealth, but it was also a place that had to be crossed in order to reach the Red Sea, the water route to the “Turquoise Terraces” of the Sinai and the land of Punt.

3The exploitation and the crossing of the desert were done by temporary expeditions that gradually built a complex network with nodes (mines, settlements, wells, harbors) and edges (unbuilt roads). Whereas, on the one hand, the nodes are highly visible thanks to construction or digging in the rock, on the other hand, the edges are almost invisible to us today. Of course, we know that those who took the road could find their way around thanks to natural and artificial landmarks, but modern travelers or researchers struggle to identify these landmarks without substantial archeological remains.

4My current thesis work is to accurately model the organization of the expeditions to the Eastern Desert during the 2nd millennium BC, from the Middle Kingdom (1990‑1760 BC) to the New Kingdom (1539‑1077 BC).1 Many questions have to be answered in order to understand the mechanics of this network: how did ancient Egyptians work in this hostile space? How did they travel? What relationships, with local populations, were created by their activities in the desert?

5In order to answer these questions, I will use not only the textual sources that have been widely commented on since the 19th century, but also the abundant archaeological data – somewhat neglected and only partially analyzed by scholars working on the region – coming from surveys and excavations of workers settlements, mines, quarries and harbors. The characteristics of the desert environment will be taken in account as well. By gathering the current knowledge from these different disciplines, it will be possible to reveal for the first time the network created by the ancient Egyptians in the Eastern Desert.

6This paper is a presentation of my research and presents a sample of the information which can be extracted from diversified sources in order to offer an overview of the occupancy of the Eastern Desert in ancient times.

The Eastern Desert as a destination: the extraction sites

7For the ancient Egyptians living in the Valley during the Pharaonic period, the main attraction of their eastern territory was the minerals hidden there and some types of stones that were non-existent on the Nile’s shores. At least 80 archaeological sites in the Eastern Desert are dated from the Middle to the New Kingdom and are related to mineral extraction (fig. 1).

Fig. 1 – Archaeological sites occupied from the Middle to the New Kingdom (I. Goncalves, with data from the ERC Desert Networks project).

8One of the most precious minerals in the mind of the Egyptians, the gold celebrated as the “flesh of gods”, is commonly found in this desert in quartz veins (fig. 2). About fifty gold-extraction sites established during the Pharaonic period, mostly during the New Kingdom, have been discovered in Egypt (e.g. Samut el‑Beda,2 Daghbag), primarily through surveys like the ones of Dietrich and Rosemarie Klemm.3 But gold was not the only material extracted in the desert. The ancient Egyptians sought copper oxides like malachite or chalcopyrite in order to use them as pigments or to convert them into copper metal, the main raw material for their weapons and tools (e.g. in the Wadi Araba).4 In addition, galena, a lead ore used as eyeshadow, was extracted in Gebel el‑Zeit.5 Amazonite or green feldspar was found in Gebel Migif,6 and amethyst in El‑Hudi, in the south of the country.7 Furthermore, two kinds of stone were quarried in the desert. Dark green greywacke, or bekhen stone, which was used for statues and steles, flanks the Wadi Hammamat.8 And Egyptian calcite alabaster appears at the edge of the Eastern Desert at Hatnub.9

Fig. 2 – Gold-bearing quartz block found on the floor near Samut North mines (I. Goncalves/MAFDO).

9To obtain all these precious minerals, the ancient Egyptians used several techniques. The easiest one was for gold exploitation. Thanks to water erosion, occurring during floods, gold-bearing quartz blocks were naturally detached from exposed veins and brought to the foot of the mountains, in the wadis. The picking up of these blocks is called “wadiworking”.10 Except for this case, it was necessary to extract the minerals from the surrounding rock with tools. The ancient Egyptians used mainly stone picks and occasionally copper tools11 to dig surface trenches or mine galleries following the veins. The greywacke of the Wadi Hammamat was mined in open-air quarries, while the calcite alabaster exploitation of Hatnub sometimes required underground quarries, the material of interest lying under bad quality stone.

10Near most of the extraction sites, the ancient Egyptians built temporary settlements occupied only during the seasonal expeditions. These settlements were made of poorly arranged dry-laid stone shelters. In general, the simple and rough walls have collapsed over time, making it difficult to observe their original shape and elevation today. However, rectangular houses with rounded corners and one or only a few rooms are often found. The ceiling would have been made of wood or other perishable material, mud or simply blankets. Very few of these huts have been excavated so far, with the exception of five huts of the remarkably large settlement of 216 houses at Samut el‑Beda, excavated by the MAFDO (Mission archéologique française du désert Oriental) in 2016. The excavation revealed small postholes in one house, which supports the assumption that a light ceiling was held up by posts.12

11The archaeological finds visible in the settlements related to gold mining are mostly a few sherds of pottery and a large amount of grinding tools. After extraction, the quartz was crushed with stone hammers and anvils to get small pebbles, which were then ground on millstones to obtain powder (fig. 3). For these periods, no traces of further treatment of the quartz powder near the extraction sites have been found. It can be assumed that it was washed near wells or in the Valley, to separate the gold from the quartz.13

Fig. 3 – Millstone found in the Pharaonic settlement of Samut el‑Beda (J. Marchand/MAFDO).

12However, in a few notable sites, the buildings and finds are more impressive. For example, the amethyst quarry of El‑Hudi was located near a Middle Kingdom fortress linked to Nubian border control. In Gebel el‑Zeit, a small sanctuary contained many offerings to Hathor (steles, scarab seals, jewelry, figurines).14 At El‑Kanais, a temple was built near a well by Seti I. At Abbad, a dozen blocks of sandstone with hieroglyphs and representations of what seems to be a king and an Hathoric crown were found reused in the Ptolemaic fort and may come from a New Kingdom sanctuary that has now completely disappeared.15

13Alongside the extraction sites and the settlements, expedition members in Antiquity sometimes engraved inscriptions which give precious information about the expedition’s organization. These inscriptions have been copied by travelers, epigraphists and archaeologists who found them during their Eastern Desert crossings, surveys or excavations.16

14The dry-stone huts and the tools are difficult to date, so the most helpful data contained in the texts is the period when the expedition took place. With the Egyptian dating system based on the years of the king’s reign, we are able to know which king ordered the expedition. With a more complete date, it is also possible to know at what time of year the workers were in the desert. At Ayn Sukhna, a site that will be detailed in the next section, an inscription is dated from the 9th year of the reign of Senusret I, the first month of Peret, day 10. Pierre Tallet calculated that this was between March 25th and April 2nd, 1911 BC.17

15The inscriptions declare the objectives of the expedition, what material was sought, and show the list of the members. Only the high-level members were named, the administrative officials working for the royal palace or the temples. A list of professions completes the inscriptions, sometimes with the number of people brought to the desert; for example, in the Wadi Hammamat, the inscription of Ameny describes a list of 18,660 workers and 80 officers.18 They were part of a Middle Kingdom expedition sent by Senusret I during the 38th year of his reign. The numbers should however be taken with caution, large numbers could have been written to symbolically heighten the king’s power in the territory. It is also possible that the numbers mentioned were the sum of several successive expedition teams.

16The texts and graffiti are also a source which help us to understand how the expedition members could feed themselves, what kind of provisions were brought from the Valley and what animals were hunted in the desert (oryx, gazelle…).19 Two products frequently cited are beer and bread. But brewers and bakers are also cited among the members of the expeditions,20 so it is most likely that the bread and beer were not only prepared in the Valley, but also in the desert with grain brought by the workers.

Roads across the desert: from the Nile Valley to the Red Sea and beyond

17The nodes of the Eastern Desert networks are composed of the cities in the Valley, the harbors on the Red Sea that gave access to other regions, more or less remote and accessible via the Red Sea, and the extraction sites that are located in the desert itself (see above on their location).

18For every expedition, the starting and arrival points were located in the Nile Valley. Indeed, the time spent in the desert was only considered as a temporary period in the life of the workers living in the Valley. For them, the adventure began and ended in the villages and cities at the mouth of the wadis going into the desert. In this context, towns like Qift/Coptos21 or Edfu,22 were of particular importance because of their location near main wadis. Furthermore, the Nile Valley cities are also of interest for the study of the exploitation network. These were administrative centers that launched expeditions, as in the case of Memphis or Thebes, or the towns of origin of expedition members, sites of logistic organization,23 and the receivers of the desert riches intended for the king, the nobles, and the temples.

19The harbors of the Pharaonic period are little known. To date, three harbors have been identified: Wadi el‑Jarf,24 Ayn Sukhna25 and Mersa Gawasis.26 They seem to have worked alternately from the Old Kingdom to the New Kingdom.27 The harbor of Wadi el‑Jarf was only used at the beginning of the Old Kingdom, during the reigns of Snefru and Khufu, and was then discarded in favor of Ayn Sukhna, closer to the capital of Memphis. Ayn Sukhna was occupied during the Middle and the New Kingdom. But during the Middle Kingdom, many expeditions were also sent from the Mersa Gawasis harbor,28 a site that was easily accessible from Qift/Coptos through the Wadi Hammamat. Furthermore, Berenike, a harbor founded during the Ptolemaic period, could have been established in the area of a Pharaonic harbor. Indeed, a Middle Kingdom stela was found on the site, but the exact original location is unknown.29 In every ancient harbor discovered, the common structures are the galleries carved in the rock. These galleries stored supplies,30 ropes and parts of boats.31 Other typical finds in these archaeological sites are stone anchors which are found under water or near the galleries.32

20The harbors were departure points for the two major destinations of foreign expeditions: the south of the Sinai and Punt.33 The Land of Punt is mentioned in ancient Egyptian texts from the Old Kingdom (2650‑2160 BC) to the New Kingdom. At least fourteen expeditions34 were sent there to pick up frankincense and myrrh, prized by the Egyptians and their gods. One famous expedition was sent by Hatshepsut and drawn on the walls of her funerary temple at Deir el‑Bahari.35 The exact position of this country is a matter of debate among the researchers who have located it in the Arabic Peninsula36 or in the Horn of Africa. Recently, a complete study about Punt has been published by Breyer who locates this land between the eastern lowlands of Sudan and the highlands of Ethiopia, on the African coast of the Red Sea.37 In Mersa Gawasis, where ships came back from Punt with goods, the material discovered is consistent with this last hypothesis. Indeed, most of the imported objects came from the area of Eritrea and Sudan38 (e.g. ceramics,39 red mangrove, ebony, obsidian40). The limited number of Yemeni potsherds found on the site are probably only markers of links between the Arabic Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, and do not imply that Egyptians had to land on the south-eastern Red Sea shore in order to acquire these objects.41

21In the southern Sinai, copper ores and turquoise were exploited from the predynastic period to the New Kingdom. For this reason, the region was called the “Turquoise Terraces”, ḫtjw fkȝt,42 by the ancient Egyptians. At Serabit el‑Khadim, the exploitation was so important during the Middle and the New Kingdom that a temple was built near the extraction sites. It was dedicated to Hathor, “Mistress of Turquoise”, who protected the workers in the desert lands.43

22To reach the exploitation sites or the shores of the Red Sea, ancient Egyptians had to cross the region. However, the roads of the desert were almost never built (with a few exceptions close to quarries like Hatnub)44 or marked. Only one example of a route description left by the ancient Egyptians has survived. It is the famous New Kingdom map known as the “Turin Papyrus Map” which was drawn during the reign of Ramses IV (1156‑1150 BC), and sketches the path to the greywacke quarry of the Wadi Hammamat and to gold settlements in Wadi el‑Sid.45 The proportions and exact orientations of the wadis are not accurate, but the most important point was to note the landmarks and their relative positions.46

23Given the lack of data, it is difficult for researchers to know exactly which routes were taken by the expeditions.47 An alternative strategy has been launched within the framework of the ERC Desert Networks project where every clue, ancient and modern, archaeological and geographical, is studied to retrace the journeys from the Nile to the target points, thanks to the construction of a model based on a GIS.48 The data integrated in the GIS are varied.

24Besides the 78 archaeological sites, that are the main nodes of the networks and those that articulate it, other material artefacts are also evidence of the ancient itineraries, and have to be taken into consideration in the GIS as small but crucial nodes: cairns, graffiti and inscriptions, scattered pottery. They were left by the expeditions and travelers on their way to their final destination, and mark the stops made by the caravans. Cairns were also there to help them find their way, while inscriptions and graffiti were aimed to mark the landscape (see above for some examples of these inscriptions). To date, 19 clusters of graffiti and inscriptions dated to the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom have been identified and located near the sites or on the roads (sometimes approximately, due to the inaccuracy of many surveys) in our GIS. The count is still in progress.

25In addition to this material evidence, natural elements can also be used to reconstruct the ancient paths. Indeed, it is more than likely that the expedition members, in order to find their way around, preferred to use the wadis (dry valleys) to cross the mountainous Egyptian Eastern Desert. Most of the time, these flat sandy valleys are natural roads, allowing travelers to avoid steep slopes during the journey (fig. 4). The exact location of wadis has been recorded in a global GIS (fig. 5), through the examination of the topographical maps and digital elevation models representing the relief of the desert.49

Fig. 4 – Beginning of the Wadi Samut in 2013 (J.‑P. Brun/MAFDO).

Fig. 5 – Main wadis and wells (I. Goncalves, with data from the ERC Desert Networks project).

26However, even if the wadis were certainly followed for most parts of the journeys, ancient Egyptians were not totally constrained to stay in the wadis. From the end of the Pharaonic period, around the 7th century BC at the earliest,50 people started to use camels to travel in the desert. Camels need sandy floors and gentle slopes to progress.51 Before the introduction of camels in Egypt, during the Middle and New Kingdom, ancient Egyptians used donkeys to carry their equipment and food.52 Donkeys can walk on rocky and steep paths and are therefore able to easily climb ridges in order to pass from one wadi to another. Therefore, the expeditions could have taken shortcuts. In order to offer relevant assumptions about the tracks taken by the caravans, a model based on the characteristics of donkeys during long walks (speed, effort according to slope…) is currently in preparation.53

27The results of the reconstruction of the road network in the Eastern Desert during the Middle and New Kingdom based on all this evidence cannot be presented here, since it is still ongoing. In the future, this research will hopefully allow the preparation of a detailed and precise cartography of the Pharaonic roads of the desert.

A crucial issue: where to find water?

28Both during the journeys and during the exploitation of raw materials, expedition members and their donkeys had to find water.54 Yet, in the Eastern Desert, there is no permanent watercourse or oasis.

29Some years, hard rains fall in the desert and flood the wadis, sweeping away everything in their path. Fortunately, these rains make the wadis green with vegetation for a short time thereafter. During these floods, the water can be collected in natural pools called qalt,55 which are made of impermeable stone eroded over time. For example, in the area of the Wadi Hammamat, in the Wadi Shagg east of Bir e‑Hammamat, Georges Goyon found a qalt with an Old Kingdom inscription on the wall.56 It could be the one discovered by a Middle Kingdom expedition of Mentuhotep IV and mentioned as a miracle in a Wadi Hammamat inscription.57

30But these surface basins are not the only available water resources. Rain can penetrate the wadi terraces, thus feeding shallow aquifers, or even penetrate some of the geologic formations (such as porous sandstone, fractured limestones and plutonic or metamorphic rocks) thus filling up deeper aquifers. In the latter case, water can circulate underground and become concentrated in some areas where wells can be dug.58 Water from outside the Eastern Desert can also reach this region from very distant parts of Africa, because its western part is linked with the “Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System”, which collected water from Chad,59 Sudan, Libya and Western Desert of Egypt during wetter periods.60 Unlike the Greeks and Romans, the Egyptians from the Pharaonic period did not dig wells regularly along the paths to the Red Sea.61 In fact, the only identified Pharaonic well is located at El‑Kanais and is dated from the New Kingdom (fig. 6). Next to this well, a temple carries an inscription telling its story. According to the texts, its construction was ordered by the pharaoh Seti I who wanted to give water to the travelers on the road to the gold mines.62

Fig. 6 – El‑Kanais well with the temple in the background (I. Goncalves/MAFDO).

31Apparently, the seasonal and ephemeral nature of the Eastern Desert exploitation during the Pharaonic period did not encourage the ancient Egyptians to spend time, resources and effort on the construction of solid wells. Therefore, as it is impossible to know from our current archeological data where the ancient Egyptians found water, we are forced to look for other hints.

32The most complete source of information about the presence of water in the desert is provided by topographical maps drawn in the 1950s and 1980s. On these maps every well opened at that time was noted as a bi’r (well in Arabic). All the wells are represented on fig. 5.63 The dots indicate areas where underground water is accessible, rather than specific structures. Wells can just be holes in the sand and the surface rock, opened for a short period and then filled with sediments carried by floods. Afterwards, another well can be dug in the vicinity. Unfortunately, it is usually impossible to know which areas suitable for wells have been known since Antiquity, and which ones have been discovered after that time. This is where the tools of geographical network analysis can be used. By mapping all the wells and the archaeological sites, it is possible to examine the distances, to look for the shortest interval between a site and a well, and to estimate the difficulty of water supply. Thanks to a model that is currently under construction and that will suggest the best routes for accessing archaeological sites, we will see if the wells are found on these routes or, on the contrary, if the expeditions had to look around the ore deposits and settlements in order to find water.

33The distance between a site and a well raises the question of water transport. It is most likely that the ancient Egyptians used waterskins rather than ceramics. Even if the waterskins probably gave a relatively bad taste to water, they had the advantage of being lighter and easier to carry. The water bags were carried by men64 but big waterskins were certainly transported by donkeys.65

Not alone in the desert: nomadic populations

34The ancient Egyptians from the Valley penetrated the desert only rarely. But this does not mean that the desert was necessarily empty when no expedition was organized. However, clues about the nomads’ presence in the Egyptian Eastern Desert during the Pharaonic period are quite rare.

35Most of the ancient settlements discovered during surveys were built by Egyptian expeditions and not nomads. Otherwise, they are prehistorical, post-2nd millennium BC, or undated.66 The same problem occurs with the numerous petroglyphs found in the Eastern Desert wadis,67 probably engraved during predynastic times or after the New Kingdom, which is the limit of our study. The only specific material owned by inhabitants of the Eastern Desert and found in the archaeological sites is “Eastern Desert Ware”, that is a late production of the Roman period, and possibly already around in the Ptolemaic times. It is possible that the climatic change before the beginning of the first dynasties, corresponding to a decrease in humidity, had complicated life in the eastern fringe of Egypt, and reduced the population in the area. Furthermore, at that time the nomads could not yet count on strong camels to carry their goods across the desert, thus limiting their spread over the territory.

36Nevertheless, the existence of nomadic people in the Eastern Desert cannot be denied. The scarcity of sources is understandable: the nomads lived mainly from pastoralism, hunting and fishing in the Red Sea, and moved seasonally to find water and food for their animals. Their way of life, as a consequence, left few traces.

37Furthermore, even if the Egyptian texts are generally focused on the people of the Valley and their feats, and not on the nomadic populations living around, they are not completely mute about them. We can identify in the texts several groups mentioned by the ancient Egyptians. We must keep in mind that references to them, by a nation that did not know them very well, must have led to simplifications, and maybe mistakes, but they still help us to analyze the local populations.

38In the Sinai, the two groups mentioned in the inscriptions are the Mentiu and the Iuntiu.68 They are represented as Asiatic enemies defeated by the king from the predynastic periods until the end of the Old Kingdom. After the 6th dynasty, the population of the area is simply called Aamu, “Asiatic”,69 without clear distinctions between the sedentary and nomadic peoples of the Levant. During the New Kingdom, the term Shasu seems to designate the nomad pastoral cultures of the Levant.70

39Outside the Sinai, a particular group of Aamu, the Aamu Heryu-sha (“Asiatics who-are-on-the-sand”) is mentioned in late Old Kingdom texts. According to the autobiography of Pepinakht, during the reign of Pepy II (2278‑2184 BC), an Egyptian harbor was attacked by these Aamu Heryu‑sha. The description of the scene suggests that the harbor mentioned here is Ayn Sukhna.71 Another population, not from the Nile Valley, can be encountered in Ayn Sukhna: the Sekhetiu, “Men of the fringes”. They were employed in the Sinai expeditions of Amenemhat III and IV (1818‑1764 BC) and were probably living in or around the oasis of Ayn Sukhna.72

40In the northern half of the Eastern Desert, mentions of nomads are not common. In the Wadi Sannur, at the south-east of Beni Suef, two steles show Ramesses II (1279‑1213 BC) capturing enemies who could be nomads of the region.73 In the Wadi Hammamat, the Iuntiu are mentioned in two inscriptions engraved during the reign of Mentuhotep IV (1945‑1938 BC). In one text, the god Min, usually related to the desert, is called a leader of the Iuntiu.74 The other text is the description of the miraculous qalt already mentioned above. It is explained that the water source had to be preserved from the Iuntiu.75 It is difficult to say if the Iuntiu mentioned here and the ones of the Sinai were actually the same group, or treated as such by the ancient Egyptians, or if it is just a generic term for nomads or barbarians. This last hypothesis could explain why the Iuntiu are also found in the southern limit of Egypt, around Aswan, as Iuntiu Ta‑sety, “Iuntiu of the Bowland”.76 Currently, the northern part of the Eastern Desert is still inhabited by a few nomads, the Arab tribe of the Ma‘aza.77

41In the southern part of the Eastern Desert, Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia, a nomadic population is regularly present in the sources, the Medjay.78 For a long time, Egyptologists have associated them with the Pan-Grave culture which left circular non-Egyptian graves in the Nile Valley (1990‑1539 BC). Since no Pan-Grave culture settlement has ever been found in the desert, it seems improbable that the two groups are identical. Thanks to linguistic studies, we know that the Medjay spoke a Cushitic language.79 Currently, the desert in the south of Egypt is inhabited by the Beja tribe of the Ababda, and in the north of Sudan by the Bishareen,80 who also speak a Cushitic language. It is not impossible that they are distant relatives of the ancient Medjay. In the “Semna Dispatches”, letters written in the fortresses on the south border of Egypt during the Middle Kingdom, the Egyptians related their encounter with Medjay men and women who wanted to leave the desert in order to work for the Egyptians.81 Several Medjay were also integrated in the Egyptian patrols of the desert.82 From the New Kingdom on, the term Medjay is not used to talk about nomads, but as the name of a desert patrol included in the Egyptian army. This change in the vocabulary does not mean that the nomads had disappeared from the southern desert. Actually, military campaigns were sent against nomads in eastern Lower Nubia during the reigns of Thutmosis IV, Amenhotep III, and Akhenaton (1400‑1336 BC).83

42In most of the cases, the nomads are depicted by the Egyptians as enemies, attacking settlements and defeated by the king. Only the Medjay seem to have had friendly relationships with the occupants of the Nile Valley, to the point of being partially integrated into Egyptian culture. Nevertheless, it is difficult today to believe that the ancient expeditions from the Valley could have succeeded without any help from the local desert dwellers. In modern times, for every new journey across the desert, travelers needed the guidance of at least one nomad to show the way, to find water and to lead them to archaeological sites and ore deposits. Without their knowledge of the landscape, an expedition into the desert could not take place. But the Egyptian texts did not want to put emphasis on the help of the nomads, because they were written for the glory of the king and his administration. For that reason, the collaborative nomads helping the Egyptians in the desert, coming to the Valley to graze their herds, or working as shepherds and mercenaries, are mostly absent from our sources.

Conclusion

43The Eastern Desert occupation during the Pharaonic period is in many ways different from its later occupation. During the Ptolemaic and Roman period, the occupation was permanent. Forts and stations were built along a defined road guarded by soldiers and used by camel caravans bringing goods from overseas. The landscape was then profoundly transformed by the buildings and also by the destruction of the natural vegetation used to make fire and to feed the animals. The itineraries, the work and living conditions in the desert at that time are mentioned in personal or administrative ostraca in the forts, or in the classic literature.

44On the contrary, the ancient Egyptians of the 2nd millennium BC seem stealthier in the desert. Except for a few impressive sites, they did not radically change the landscape. They did not try to completely control this territory because a permanent exploitation of the resources from the Eastern Desert and from the lands across the Red Sea was not necessary for their economy. So, the desert remained an odd and frightening place for them.

45The scarcity of the sources that reveal the Eastern Desert’s occupation is the reason why researchers need more than ever to adopt an interdisciplinary approach. Only if archaeology, epigraphy, geology and ethnology are used together can they enlighten us about the ancient Egyptians’ exploitation of the desert.